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Sadly it doesn't matter at this point.
Last year's large YOY means plenty of young fish in the pipeline and buys fishery managers another 10-15 years of mismanagement before there where will be any real concern about stock collapse.
It also means that existing fish are now expendable. They can continue to hammer the current large fish to obliteration without threatening "sustainable yield", indeed under the law the ASMFC is expected to do so.
Unfortunately the result is likely to be an exhaustion of quality fish over the next 4-5 years, followed by 5-6 years of a fishery dominated by small fish. Commercially this won't matter very much, but recreational fishermen who care about maintaining a consistent population of large bass to target have a lot to lose under current management guidelines.
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Threaded Mode